


Laughter and Ghosts

by Supercalifragiwhatsit



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: Angst, But more fluff than angst, F/M, Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-21
Updated: 2012-03-21
Packaged: 2017-11-02 07:23:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/366436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supercalifragiwhatsit/pseuds/Supercalifragiwhatsit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes the Warden reminds Zevran a little too much of Rinna.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Laughter and Ghosts

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a kmeme prompt

The Warden wasn't exactly what one came to expect when thinking on the oh so serious order. Certainly not what he had expected. Alistair seemed to at least attempt, badly, to uphold the reputation, but Kallian? Never. She was all laughter; laughter and dancing steps and flowers in her hair.

When she danced around the camp, seemingly unaware of how she taunted the rest of them, it was entrancing. When her laughter came flying over the field of battle it was terrifying.

He'd asked her about that once. The shorter elf had just grinned at him in that way of hers, saying that sometimes she gave their enemies new faces in her mind and imagined she was taking down specific people. Who, she would not say.

If that was meant to make it _less_ intimidating then he was afraid she had very much gone counter to her intention. Of course, he _had_ tried to kill her... he couldn't help but wonder what face she had given him as their blades crossed. Or maybe she hadn't imagined someone else in his place. Maybe that was why he had survived.

No, normally she was nothing like Rinna at all. Her chocolate hair was lighter and longer, her face rounder. Even how she stood was different; the easy stance of someone who could fight quite well but had no reason to expect a fight at any moment. Rinna had always been prepared, even in... Well, a Crow always had to be prepared for treachery.

Kallian wasn't. Part of him wanted to fix that, to insist that she needed to guard herself more. The rest of him, the part that he wasn't quite sure what to do about, wanted to watch her back so that she never had to learn that lesson the hard way.

At least the view _was_ wonderful.

Right now it was harder to see the differences. Her hair was loose and wet from the river, free of any of the flowers or bows that usually adorned it. It fell down her back and over her shoulder in inky streams, and from this angle he could almost imagine that it ended just beyond her shoulders rather than continuing further down. The leaves above them were swaying in the wind, and the dancing shadows hid her freckles. The curves of her face just barely gave way to angles, and it was easy to imagine tattoos snaking up just beyond his sight.

Logic told him that they looked different, acted different, _were_ different. They were night and day, to use a tired old comparison. Where Rinna had been a diamond shaft of moonlight, cutting through the darkness with precision, his Warden was the sun, flinging affection or death freely about herself with not a care in the world. There should have been no comparison between the two.

Yet as she stood there with her eyes sharp and expression serious, watching the younger dwarf add a runestone to her blade, he could easily switch one woman for another. And when the runestone flared, turning the violet of her eyes to a shining silvery blue, he had to look away.

Of all the girls to end up following... Penance came in the form of innocence and glee wrapped in a shape far too close to that of an old lover, old guilt. It would seem he had a type, of sorts. Either that or incredibly bad luck.

He rather wished he didn't. Even more than that, Zevran wished the Warden would go back to smiling and laughing so he could _pretend_ he didn't... 

But the Maker wasn't on his side today. Instead of smiling she frowned, eyes glinting as she leaned closer to inspect what the blonde dwarf was doing. Even when she did smile at something the dwarf said (probably 'Enchantment', did he ever say anything else?) it was a faint one, automatic while her eyes were still sharp and concerned with the runes themselves.

Zevran pushed to his feet, shaking the leaves off of his armor and letting a charming smile slip onto his face with an ease won from long practice as he stalked towards her. Well, if she wasn't going to smile herself then he would just have to fix that.

"Ah, you're looking so serious, my dear Warden. I should try poetry again, no?"

She laughed, stepping back from her sword with a pat to the dwarf's head, "Do you know any _good_ poetry?"

He did, but that wouldn't make her laugh, so he smiled and lied as easy as breathing, "Alas, no, not in common. Good _Antivan_ poetry, now that I know, but sadly not in a tongue you'd understand."

"So the great assassin can't translate?" Her eyes were dancing, not a trace of the hardness that had been in them a moment before.

"Yes, well, as you can imagine books weren't really on the list of things we focus on in the Crows." Another lie, of a sorts. Books might not have been the _first_ thing they focused on, but he surely was well read enough to know what he was about, poetry or not. Ah well, it wasn't like she was ever going to find out, and it made her smile.

"Yet you memorize the most awkward poems ever!"

"They stick in the mind!" He laughed, smiling down at her and moving closer, "Do _you_ know any 'good' poems then, my Warden? Otherwise you surely have no room to mock."

She snorted, an unladylike sound that seemed completely at odds with her appearance, "When we got bored in the alienage we used to make up all sorts of naughty limericks about people. Some of those were quite amusing! To us, at least."

"Oh? Were there any of these limericks about you?"

"A few." She waved a hand in the air, eyes still sparkling with laughter, "Mostly involving embarrassing stories though, nothing worth repeating."

"Now, you've heard no few of my embarrassing stories. I'd say fair is fair." He reached out, tracing his fingers through her hair for barely a moment before she was dancing out of his reach, spinning and grinning slyly over her shoulder in a move that was so familiar it made his heart clench. Zevran kept the smile on his face, but it was a close thing.

Then the resemblance was gone again, quick as it had appeared, as she laughed and walked backwards away from him, "Maybe later!" She twirled a finger in her damp hair in a way that Rinna never had, that teasing smile on her face completely lacking the sort of calculation any Crow would apply to such a thing, "One was about me getting stuck in the top branches of the Venadahl. _That_ wasn't fun."

He relaxed a bit, walking after her but letting her keep the distance. If he wanted to he could close it in an instance, before she even had time to react... but this suited him. "Trapped in a tree like a little kitten, were you? Was it gravity or a ladder that took you down?"

Kallian laughed again, spinning and waving a hand at him, "I'll tell you later! Maybe!" And with that she left him where he was, moving towards Leliana with that walk of hers that held far more bounce than the seductive sway he was used to seeing on... other women.

It was foolish of her to turn her back on him. Foolish of her to trust him. Ever so stupid of her to even consider letting him close, especially since Alistair had stopped hovering over her like a jealous lover... But when she smiled he could look at her without guilt. When she laughed her eyes sparkled with a future he had no right to wish for, not ghosts of the past.

So perhaps her innocence was a good thing, however tenuous it's hold. And if anyone _else_ ever tried to break her of that, well, then he'd just have to deal with them in the way he knew best.


End file.
